The Rashomon Job
In a pastiche of the classic 1950 film Rashômon, the team members recall - from very different perspectives - how they each tried to pilfer the same artifact on the very same night five years earlier. The Mark * Edgar Gladstone: a financier and owner of the Dagger of Aqu'abi * Coswell: his head head of security * Guttman: an art dealer who has hired Eliot to steal the dagger Clients None - this episode is a reflection of a time before Leverage Consulting & Associates formed. The Con It was a simple theft scenario where Sophie, Eliot, Hardison, and Parker tried to steal the Dagger of Aqu'abi with their own methods, and unknowingly at the same time. Grifter - Sophie sneaks in playing as a duchess, where she spikes Minister Bioko's champagne with shrimp extract, his allergy, and hands it to a server to give to him. She uses the distraction caused to pick pocket a security card and slip out of the room to the security halls, where she switches outfits to become a fake doctor scanning the artworks. Sophie encounters Coswell, the head of security, who had noticed she looked a bit like the duchess upstairs, and quickly excuses himself. Realizing her cover was blown, Sophie worked fast to switch out the dagger's shipping address to her own personal address in London. Unfortunately, the crate shipped to her was empty. Hitter - Eliot, after fighting off some would-be assassins, gets a call from Guttman, who offers to drop the hit placed on him if he could swipe the Dagger of Aqu'abi for him. Eliot sneaks into the party by locking up the real Dr. Wes in his car trunk and taking his clothes. After disguising himself, he runs into Sophie, then pushes forward to save Minister Bioko despite not being an actual doctor. Fortunately, he doesn't have to operate and takes the opportunity to transfer him to a first aid room in the security halls. After ditching him, Eliot leaves and attacks a security guard and switches clothes. He also encounters Coswell, who demands that he look for the duchess (Sophie). Acting as one of the art movers, he takes the small crate the dagger was supposedly in and transfers it to another crate (and the reason why Sophie's crate was empty). However, the dagger had been replaced with a mug. Hacker - Hardison snuck into the party by hacking the invite list and passing himself off as Minister Bioko. He intended to take a trophy (the dagger) to prove he had beaten the Tanuki Security system. Hardison fakes choking as a distraction and to get into the security hall. He nearly freaks out when Eliot nearly slices a hole in his throat and quickly feigns healing with meds, which were actually breath mints. After Eliot leaves him in the first aid room, Hardison uses the computer to hack into the inventory system to ensure that the dagger remains in the vault rather than being shipped out. He also encounters Coswell, whom Hardison quickly locks in a storage closet along with a guard who had been previously ambushed by Eliot. Once the threats are out of the way, Hardison goes to open the vault where the dagger should be, but is confused to see it isn't there. Thief - Parker managed to sneak into the party acting as one of the serving staff. She is given a champagne glass by Sophie to be delivered to Minister Bioko (Hardison), but due to not understanding her request, Parker just passes it to a random person (Eliot), before being confronted by Coswell, who demands to know why she doesn't have any drinks or a name tag. Parker quickly excuses herself, where she witnesses Hardison fake-choking, then gleefully offers Elliot a knife to open his throat. Using the distraction, she takes her bag of supplies and sneaks into the ventilation shaft leading into the storage closet in the security hall. Parker is unable to leave the storage closet due to the door being jammed, so she then sneaks her way through the ventilation into the art storage room, where she swipes the dagger from the vault and places a mug in a small crate (the reason why Eliot and Hardison didn't get the dagger either). Sneaking back to the closet in the ventilation, she grabs her back and tried to climb her way to the roof, but was surprised to encounter Coswell also in the ventilation shaft. Parker quickly attacks him, but then accidentally dropped the dagger down the shaft. Mastermind - Nate finally revealed the REAL way the events happened that night after hearing everyone else's stories. Turned out his old company, IYS, was the one insuring the artworks at the museum. Nate goes off to the security room to foresee the transfers, and it is revealed that Coswell is actually some nerdy insecure guy, nothing like the hawk-eyed, anticipating veteran the others figured him out to be. It also showed how each of the previous four had unknowingly interfered with each other in their individual heists (like the reason why Parker couldn't exit the storage close was because the door was blocked by Eliot while he was fighting the guard). After the dagger had been passed around numerous times, finally leading to Parker dropping it in the ventilation shaft, Nate just happened to be directly under the opening of said shaft, and caught the dagger. However, he revealed that the dagger was nothing but a cheap counterfeit, that Edgar Gladstone had intended to have it stolen so he could collect on the insurance while selling the real one off on the black market. Nate charges him for fraud, but makes a deal with him to keep Gladstone out of prison; that the dagger is now the property of IYS and that it is now considered stolen. Aliases * Sophie Devereaux - Duchess Alexia of Barrington-Highsworth/Dr. Karen Ipcress * Eliot Spencer - Dr. Wes Abernathy/Unnamed Security Guard/"Herb" (Driver) * Alec Hardison - Minister Robert Bioko/Unnamed Security Guard * Parker - Unnamed wait staff Artifacts * The Dagger of Aqu'abi (pronounced AH-koo AH-bee) * The Sapphire Monkey Notes * Eliot has appeared as Dr. Abernathy before, in The Jailhouse Job. * The Sapphire Monkey was previously described in The Two-Horse Job. * This is the first episode since "The Scheherazade Job" where Damien Moreau is mentioned. * Three actors play the role of Dr. Wes Abernathy ** Riley Smith, in Sophie's version of the story ** Eric Stevens, in the car during Eliot's version of the story ** Christian Kane, as Eliot Spencer * The museum shots were of the Portland Art Museumhttp://www.ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=3942. * Sophie Soong reprises her role as television reporter Janet Lin. She previously appeared in The Inside Job. * Hardison still lived with his Nana five years prior to the time of the episode. This would make Hardison about 19 years old at the time of the Rashomon Job. * Nate was still married to Maggie. * Eliot, Hardison, and Parker apparently hear Sophie differently as showed from their own POVs involving her. * Things Parker doesn't know: Stealing mail is a crime. Trivia In Elliot, Hardison, and Parker's scenarios, Sophie had very different accents according to them. Category:Episodes Category:Season 3 Category:Bottle Episodes